The Gate Traveler

Startled, I woke up to Rue’s voice shouting in my mind, “No! Bad! Mahya! Bad!” His voice reverberated painfully in my head, dragging me from sleep.

I groaned, rolled out of bed, and went to investigate the crisis. I found Mahya and Rue in the saloon. Rue’s head hung low, his tail between his legs, and he looked utterly dejected.

“What happened?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“Rue found out that after the boat’s renovation, we won’t be able to use phones and computers on board,” Mahya explained.

“We won’t?” I asked, still half-asleep.

“No, the mana will fry them.”

“Won’t it affect the boats next to us? I don’t want to damage other boats.”

Mahya shook her head. “No, Lis taught me how to build a containment field, so the effect will only be on our boat but the whole boat.”

“Movies! Movies!” Rue suddenly shouted, making me wince. God, he was loud, especially first thing in the morning.

I scratched his ears, trying to calm him down. “Relax, buddy. It will take us some time to finish the project, so you can watch movies in the meantime. We will travel by land to reach the next Gates, allowing you to watch movies on the train. Once we’re away from others on our sailing trip, I’ll bring my house out and activate the dead zone in the spell room so that you can watch movies there.”

Rue’s tail began wagging furiously, and he shouted, “John! Friend! Mahya! Bad!”

Mahya lifted her hands in dismay, shook her head, and said, “Whatever! John, I have a shopping list for you.” She sighed, handing me a page with an exaggerated eye roll.

I glanced at the list and asked, “2,000 meters of copper wire? Isn’t that too much? Three meters of gold wire? Why gold?” My eyebrows shot up at the sight of it.

“We don’t need all the copper wire for the boat, but I’ll need it for other things, so you might as well buy it in one place. I need the gold for the boat for specific parts that need better conductivity.”

“Does it have to be those diameters?” I pressed, still trying to wrap my head around the numbers.

“Yes,” she answered, giving me a firm nod.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Rue, do you want to come with me?”

“Movie!” Rue barked, his excitement returning full force.

Mahya took the list from my hand, scribbled something, and handed it back.

“Portable generator?” I read aloud, puzzled.

“When I remove the engine, we won’t have electricity,” she explained.

“Do I need to buy diesel for it?” I asked, already mentally calculating the logistics.

“No, I store the diesel from the fuel tank; we’re good.”

The 9.266mm copper wire was easy to find, but the 1mm gold wire was more complicated and expensive! Especially considering her requirement of at least 18k.

I called Mahya and asked, “There is 18k gold-plated semi-hard copper wire, 1 mm in diameter. Can we use that?”

“The pure gold is still necessary for the mana relay, but try to get as much plated wire as possible. It’ll replace some copper to improve performance, and I can use it for other projects.”

Oh, well, I’m glad I sold the coins.

I didn’t need to buy nuts, bolts, and all the small fasteners—I had an ample supply. It was quite a hassle to find the non-powered engraver. Mahya wanted nibs of various thicknesses, but the pens with interchangeable nibs were either powered or had only two or three options. I purchased five different pens, and to be safe, I bought twenty of each.

When I returned to the boat, Mahya told me, “Start channeling Restore, specifically to the engine area, and when you’re out of mana, regenerate some and start learning runes.”

“Yes, boss,” I said with a salute.

After storing all the electrical appliances and emptying my mana pool into the engine area, I took the rune book and started learning runes. My ability improved! In the past, my limit was three runes before a headache; now it was five.

I asked Mahya if she needed help, and she handed me an enormous bunch of twisted metal things with the instruction, “Clean those and fix any issue you see.”

Once inside, I started casting Clean on each component and then used my regeneration to channel Restore. By the time I finished, it was dusk. I waited patiently until my mana reached 500, studied five more runes, felt a slight headache, and then called it a day.

The next day was identical, with a slight unexpected twist. While channeling Restore, I examined it and made an interesting discovery about its spell structure—or lack thereof. Surprisingly, I discovered the spell contained only concepts, with no shell or structure to connect or hold them together. I stopped channeling from the shock. The book about mana constructs for spells emphasized that every spell needs a construct to hold it together. I channeled my Heat spell and made the same discovery: there was no mana shell. Upon inspection, I found that the Adaptable Light Ball had a shell.

Hmm, curious.

I went back to the restoration and studying runes, focusing on the more familiar tasks. It was not the right time to experiment with mana. Rue’s voice suddenly shouted in my mind, “John! Fix!” His urgency was unmistakable, so I sighed and went to see what was happening now.

The computer was dead.

Oops.

I winced at the sight of it. Fortunately, the portable generator still worked.

“Don’t worry. I have more computers, and the movie is on the disc, so nothing has happened to it,” I reassured Rue, who was staring at the dead machine. “But we need to move to a hotel. Otherwise, the computers will continue dying.”

“Movie!” Rue barked, his eyes wide with hope.

“Yes, at the hotel, you’ll continue watching the movie,” I told him, scratching his ears. He sighed dramatically, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and pushed his head into my hand, demanding more scratches. I chuckled and obliged until he finally had enough. With Rue satisfied, I went looking for Mahya.

“We need to move to a hotel. I killed another computer,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

“And the last light is in the engine area,” she told me, not missing a beat. “I had to buy the Adaptable Light Ball spell.”

“It is a useful spell,” I said with a nod.

She gave me a look, her eyebrow raised. “I know that. That’s why I bought it.”

“I’ll take Rue, get us rooms, and send you and Alfonsen the information,” I said, already planning ahead. “After I rest, I’ll continue the restoration at night. I’m worried people will notice too much change.”

Mahya nodded.

“Leave the parts you need me to work on in the saloon.”

“I’ve finished the parts we need,” she replied, crossing her arms. “The rest we can either sell or throw away.”

“Instead of getting rid of them, let’s keep them as metal scraps,” I suggested, glancing around thoughtfully. “We’ll find a use for them, eventually.”

Mahya shrugged. “Fine. But don’t clutter up your Storage with too much junk.”

After returning in the evening, I restored and learned runes for five days. I tried to understand the aspects of the spell, but I had difficulty deciphering them. The concept of reversing something, which I assumed to be time, seemed peculiar to me. It felt like it didn’t exist, but it had movement in it. It thoroughly confused me, and I gave up on understanding it. 

On the sixth night, after three thousand mana, I felt the spell wasn’t doing anything anymore. Inspecting the boat’s interior with the light spell, I saw it looked new. I verified that the water tanks and engine area looked new, and they were all perfect. It looked as if someone had built it today. I patted the deck and said, “Good girl.”

I spent another two days in the hotel, alternating between learning runes and keeping Rue company during breaks. He was currently binge-watching the Lethal Weapon movies and scoffing at every other scene, with telepathic grumbles that broke my focus.

“Why are you scoffing at the movie?” I asked.

“Dog! Cookies! Yuck!” Rue responded, wrinkling his nose in disgust, his tail thumping on the floor in irritation.

I laughed, patting him on the side. “Yep, they’re not a level fifty mana snake,” I teased, shaking my head.

“Snake! Yum! Give!” Rue barked, his excitement flaring up as his ears perked, clearly ready for a treat.

Finally, I completed my study of the runic language. The language I learned for my ritual with Rue differed entirely from this one. That language had runes for high concepts such as friendship, unity, trust, love, understanding, and all the elements. This language was much more utilitarian, with runes for concepts such as direction, angle, pressure, analysis, circuit, and current and several rune variations for automating.

I called Mahya to let her know I was done.

“Get your butt down here, stat,” she said. Her voice had that no-nonsense tone that told me she meant business.

When I got to the boat, she handed me all the metal pieces I had cleaned previously. “Go to the room with the blueprint and start engraving,” she instructed, pointing toward the door.

“How would I know what to engrave where?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, a little unsure.

“The blueprint is obvious. Just follow it,” she replied, her tone exasperated, as if it were the most straightforward thing in the world.

“Yes, boss,” I muttered, giving her a mock salute before heading to the room with a smirk.

Working on the bigger pieces after watching her engrave was an immense relief. The process looked pretty awful. She used the smallest nib and a jeweler’s loupe to engrave the one mm-diameter gold and gold-plated wires.

Friends are fantastic, especially when they give you an easy job.

After four or five hours, my red light started blinking.

You have learned the Skill [Engraving]

I gave the system a thumbs-up and continued engraving, the rhythmic sound of the tool filling the room. When I saw Mahya pause to regenerate for the second time, I couldn’t help but ask, “Want to learn the Absorb Mana spell to regenerate faster?” I glanced over at her, noting the fatigue in her posture.

“It helps?” she asked, wiping some sweat from her brow, clearly intrigued.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “My regeneration is fifteen per minute without the spell, but with it, it increases to eighteen per minute.”

“Shit,” she muttered, her eyes widening. “Your channels must be massive if you regenerate fifteen per minute. Mine is only three.” She sounded envious as she leaned against the wall to rest.

“At least something good came out of Tír na nÓg,” I said, half-smiling, trying to lighten the mood.

“There’s nothing good there,” she snarled, her face darkening as she spoke, a fierce look in her eyes.

We had to wait until she had regenerated at least a thousand mana before we could start, but I managed to teach her in less than an hour. All that work with Lis made me an expert.

She sat down to regenerate but immediately jumped up, rubbing her arms with a grimace. “My channels are itchy,” she complained, her voice sharp with discomfort.

“Deal with it,” I said, not looking up from my work. “That way, they’ll expand. If you feel pain, stop the spell.” I glanced over briefly, offering a small shrug. It was part of the process, after all.

After five minutes, I glanced at her again and asked, “Did it make a difference?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod, a small smile breaking through her earlier frustration. “I’m up to six.”

“And your channels?”

“The itching subsided a bit, and they feel fine,” she replied, rolling her shoulders as if testing them out. She seemed pleased with the results.

I gave her a thumbs-up and returned to my engraving. After three days, I finished all my parts, and she switched me to the thick copper wire. She tried to give me the thin wires, but I told her to forget about it.

It took us two weeks to finish all the engravings. During all this time, Alfonsen attended workshops, and Rue watched television or movies on the computer at the hotel. I worried about his eyesight, but after diagnosing him, I saw he was fine.

On the last day of the engraving project, my red light started blinking.

 

You have shown dedication, determination, and perseverance in performing support tasks under the guidance of a potential Magicaneer. A new class has been unlocked: [Rune Engraver]. Would you like to take the Rune Engraver Class as a sub-class? Cost: 5 Ability Points Y/N

 

Thank you, but noooooo.

I didn’t tell Mahya about it, but curiosity got the better of me, so I asked, “How is your Magicaneer class progressing?” My tone was casual, though I was genuinely interested in her progress.

“I hope that after completing this project, I can get it for free,” she said, her voice filled with hope. She glanced at the metal pieces before continuing, “But even if the Guidance offers it at a reduced cost, I’ll know I’m on the right track.” She gave me a determined nod, clearly focused on her goal.

When we finished all the engravings, Mahya shooed me off the boat and told me she needed a few more days. I picked up Rue from the hotel and went to explore Shanghai.

We visited Shanghai’s old town, the Yuyuan Garden, and the Bazaar. At first, Rue felt bored and kept yelling in my mind, “Back! Hotel! Movie!” But his interest sparked when he saw children in the garden, and I bought him treats at the bazaar, so he became very interested.

I visited the Bund, People’s Square, and the Shanghai Museum. This time, I left Rue at the hotel. I wanted him to exercise, but knew he’d get bored because of our previous museum experience. I also visited the water town of Zhujiajiao alone; there was no point trying to take Rue on a wobbly boat.

After five days of exploring, Mahya approached me in the evening, looking tired but satisfied. “I’m done,” she announced, brushing a stray hair out of her face, “but there are still small things we’ll need to handle.”

“Like what?”

“Convert the fridge and stove to Magitech,” she replied matter-of-factly. “That reminds me: go buy gas burners and gas so you can cook on the boat.”

“Why is it so I can cook and not we can cook?” I asked indignantly.

“Because I’m not a liar.”

This time, I stuck out my tongue in response to her comment. Lis was correct; certain gestures are too expressive to avoid.

I purchased gas burners, a substantial gas supply to last me for several years, and five additional stoves and refrigerators to ensure their survival during the conversion process. After a month in Shanghai, we were finally done.